


Turn Your Head and Cough

by sakuuya



Category: Battle for London in the Air (Roleplay)
Genre: Awkwardness, Beck sucks, Dr. J also sucks, Gen, Immortal Illuminati AU, Unresolved Murderous Tension, honestly these assholes deserve each other, no one actually checks anyone for a hernia tho, physical exam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:07:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25422871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sakuuya/pseuds/sakuuya
Summary: It’s not every day that someone rises from the dead. To properly investigate the phenomenon, Thaddeus Beck needs a physical exam.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	Turn Your Head and Cough

Beck was twenty minutes late to his appointment. When he finally deigned to appear, Dr. Jhandir looked up and closed his pocket watch loudly. He’d been holding that position for seventeen minutes, just waiting for Beck to show his face. And sure, the pocket watch was a bit old-fashioned, but it was more satisfying to snap a pocket watch closed than it was to tap a wristwatch.

“You’re late.”

Beck was just staring, eyes wide and pale skin even whiter than usual. After a moment, he whirled around and hurried back out the exam room door, slamming it shut behind him.

It took more than a week for Beck’s appointment to pop back up on Dr. Jhandir’s calendar. The doctor wondered who had finally forced Beck to reschedule it—surely not Irving, who could barely make even normal, obedient agents follow his rules. Dr. Jhandir barely expected Beck to show up, but to his surprise, the nobleman was only twelve minutes late this time.

Beck entered the exam room with such an air of bravado and unconcern that Dr. Jhandir knew it must have been a put-on, an attempt to make up for his cowardice last time.

“You’re late again.”

“Yes, well, there’s such a lot to do now that I’m back. Without my assistance, there’s no way the illuminati would be able to stop what Massey’s planning. So _do_ pardon me if it’s difficult to find the time for a formality such as this.”

Dr. Jhandir raised an eyebrow. “Is that why you ran away from your first appointment?”

“You took me by surprise!” Beck huffed. “Irving neglected to inform me who’d be performing my exam, and it seemed like an ambush. Or have you forgotten that you _murdered me_?”

“That’s irrelevant,” Dr. Jhandir replied, trying to ignore the warm feeling that spread through his chest at the mere thought. “Your current existence, though unfortunate, is medically significant, and as the head of IIA’s medical department, it naturally falls to me to give you your physical exam.”

A self-satisfied smile spread across Beck’s face. “Oh yes, I heard you’d been reassigned to administration. A just punishment for killing me, wouldn’t you say?”

“That happened more than a decade later. It was nothing to do with you,” Dr. Jhandir said, and Beck’s face immediately fell. The doctor pulled on a pair of nitrile gloves and gestured to the examination table. “Hop up here, and let’s get this over with.”

Beck circled around to reach the table, like he was afraid to get within Dr. Jhandir’s reach. He even flinched as Dr. Jhandir attached a blood pressure cuff to his arm.

“Relax, or we’re going to be here all day while I try to get accurate readings,” Dr. Jhandir grumped. Beck took a couple deep breaths, but his blood pressure was still a little high. Dr. Jhandir wasn’t sure if that was a side effect of his reanimation or just because the idiot was worried that he was going to die. The doctor made a note of the inconclusive reading and moved on.

Beck’s heart and breath sounded normal enough when Dr. Jhandir pressed a stethoscope to his chest—his _bare_ chest, because his shirt was unbuttoned to an embarrassing degree. He refused an oral thermometer like the mewling child he was, so Dr. Jhandir took his temperature aurally. It was high, even for an immortal.

“Do you feel feverish?” Dr. Jhandir pressed the back of one hand to Beck’s forehead and grabbed his shoulder with the other to stop him from jerking away.

“I feel _fine_ , Anil. This whole exam is dreadfully unnecessary!”

The doctor gave a noncommittal hum, which previous patients had told him was worrying, and changed the subject: “Roll your sleeve. I need to draw blood for testing.”

“By God, you’re not going to cut me, are you?!” Beck exclaimed. Dr. Jhandir rolled his eyes.

“Do you think medical science regressed to the dark ages while you were gone? Hypodermic needles aren't a new invention. Roll your sleeve.”

Beck still looked reluctant as he did so. Dr. Jhandir didn't bother trying to get Beck to relax as he sterilized the inside of his elbow and tied on the tourniquet. 

"Avert your eyes if you need to. I'll start the draw in three, two—" and he stuck Beck with the butterfly needle. Beck yelped.

"What kind of a countdown was that, you knave?"

"This is a common pediatric trick," Dr. Jhandir said, leaving Beck to catch the inference. "You were too tense."

He had four vacutainer tubes to fill—there were so many tests he was eager to run on Beck's blood. The chance to study a resurrected man was even worth the annoyance of interacting with the man in question.

As Dr. Jhandir watched the first tube fill up, he fancied that there was something special about the blood. It was the normal color, the normal viscosity… Maybe his reaction was just because he was so intimately familiar with this blood. He switched the tube, keeping the needle perfectly still, and he could practically feel the way that blood had spilled hot across his hands as he pulled a knife out of Beck's chest, more than half a century ago. 

Dr. Jhandir switched the tube twice more, intent all the while on the flow of Beck's blood. His attention narrowed to just the blood draw, so much that he startled at the touch of a hand on his arm.

Beck hissed in pain as the needle moved, but he deserved it—he was the one who'd touched the doctor.

"What do you think you're doing?" Dr. Jhandir snapped as he detached the last tube and slipped the needle out.

"I saw the way you were looking at me," Beck said, his voice too low. He kept his other hand on the doctor's arm as he continued, "I suspected that there was more to this than you claimed, of course, but… I hadn't credited you with such sterling taste. Or any taste, if I'm being honest."

Beck was mad with blood loss. That had to be it. Dr. Jhandir hadn't taken _that_ much blood, but there was no other plausible explanation.

He wrenched his arm away and fixed Beck with the flattest stare he could muster before he finished bandaging the draw site. To his growing dismay, the next thing on his checklist was an abdominal exam.

"Don't be absurd, Thaddeus," he said, not bothering to keep the contempt out of his voice. "Take off your shirt."

The look on Beck's face was _disgustingly_ smug as he slid off the exam table and started to undo the rest of his buttons. There was a strange rhythm to his movements, but it took Dr. Jhandir a long moment before the horrifying truth crystallized: Beck was attempting a bloody strip tease.

As Beck untucked his shirt, too slowly, something came free from his waistband and fell to the floor with a metallic sound. Both men reached for it, but Dr. Jhandir was a hair faster.

"A switchblade," he said flatly as he flicked it open. "And you were afraid of _me_ stabbing _you_."

Beck held up a hand and put the other over his heart. "I swear on my own grave that I had no ill intentions. I feared for my life! The knife was purely for self-defense."

"Get back on the table and lay down."

Dr. Jhandir closed the switchblade and dropped it into his lab coat pocket. Beck watched until the knife was out of sight before stretching out on the exam table. It wasn’t strictly necessary to strap him down, but he hadn’t said the switchblade was his only weapon. So on went the straps over Beck’s chest, hips, wrists and ankles. Beck protested— _really, Anil, you have nothing to fear from me_ —but didn’t try to fight. 

Beck’s exposed skin was too pale, but that had been true before he died; it wasn’t a side-effect of his resurrection. Dr. Jhandir felt along his abdomen for any abnormalities. Beck didn’t seem to have any areas of discomfort, which was a bit of a disappointment. Nor did palpitating or percussing his abdomen reveal anything out of the ordinary, no artifacts of whatever had brought him back to life.

The next step was an x-ray of Beck’s chest and abdomen. Dr. Jhandir stepped away from the exam table to prepare it, leaving Beck strapped down. He was excited to get a better view of Beck’s insides, but an x-ray was still a half-measure in his opinion. In order to _really_ understand what was happening inside Beck’s resurrected body, he needed to open it up and see for himself, to watch the twitching of his organs and thudding of his heart, to see the way his blood flowed outside the sterile confines of a blood draw—

“Ah, there’s that look again. Is this your attempt at flirting?”

Dr. Jhandir took the x-ray in stony silence. 


End file.
